On board a motor vehicle, a driver assist is provided that is intended to assist or, in part, to replace a driver. To that end, the driver assist may be equipped, for example, to carry out a longitudinal or lateral control of the motor vehicle in supportive, semi-automatic, highly automated or fully automatic fashion. Generally, however, it is possible for the driver to overrule the driver assist and, by braking or steering, for example, to cause the vehicle to carry out a different maneuver than was planned by the driver assist. In general, such an ability of a driver assist to be interrupted is regarded as important in order to increase a driver's acceptance of the driver assist. This holds true especially for those driver assists which are not capable of behaving completely autonomously.
The route on which the motor vehicle is to be guided is usually known to the driver assist. To that end, for example, a destination point may be defined, to which a navigation system determines a route, starting from an instantaneous position of the motor vehicle. To permit better reaction to influences in an area surrounding the motor vehicle, driving-environment data may be provided, for example, from a backend system. For instance, such driving-environment data may include information which goes beyond cartographical data in a map memory of the navigation system. Based on a specific route, the driving-environment data for the route may be made available to the driver assist.
If the driver overrules the navigation system and leaves the predetermined route, the driving-environment data is thus not immediately available for the area surrounding the motor vehicle. To provide updated data in the current driving environment of the motor vehicle, a certain time may therefore elapse. During this time, the driver assist can only be used with reduced accuracy or not at all.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method, a computer-program product and an apparatus for the improved provision of driving-environment data for a driver-assist system on board a motor vehicle. The present invention achieves this objective with the aid of the subject matter described herein. Preferred specific embodiments are described herein.